Anderson Cooper: Media vs. Obama
More journalists start defending Fox News in its war with the White House
CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper
(Retna Ltd./Corbis/Sara De Boer)
You know "the White House's anti-Fox News campaign has gone seriously wrong," said Lachlan Markay in News Busters, when, on CNN, Anderson Cooper compares Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. (Watch) Cooper's comparison of the Obama and Nixon administrations was "lukewarm," but "if more of the mainstream media follow his lead, it could be trouble for Obama."
The other networks have already joined in, said Allahpundit in Hot Air, by "standing up to the Baby-in-Chief" when the White House tried to freeze out Fox News reporters from a press pool interview with pay czar Kenneth Feinberg. Fox's media defenders deserve praise, but don't think they were unaware that "if they had acquiesced in this freezeout, a precedent would have been set that would have been eagerly used by future Republican presidents to close them off too."
What hypocrites, said Glenn Greenwald in Salon. The networks are now whining in unison that the White House is trying to "control the media" by criticizing Fox News as something other than a news organization. But the same people now repeating right-wing attacks on President Obama—"it's Nixonian!"—were happy to sit back and be bullied and controlled by the Bush administration.
"The Bush administration, in eight years, conducted more abuses to the field of journalism than anyone I can recall," said John Cole in Balloon Juice. It paid Armstrong Williams and other commentators to write favorable opinion columns. It used reporters to out a CIA agent, and kicked New York Times reporters off its planes. It even had Ari Fleischer tell everyone, mainly reporters, to "watch what they say." All the Obama White House did was "state the obvious" —that Fox's news isn't news, it's Republican opinion.
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69 Comments
Posted by doris mc., Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:28 am the reason that the white house and obama froze out fox is because they tell the truth. this administration wants to control what we say and what we do. look out america because this country is no longer what it use tob. this is not the us. i grew up in and i can'T BELIEVE AMERICANS CANT SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING . THERE IS NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH OR FREEDOM OF PRESS DEPENDING ON WHAT GROUPYOU ARE. I AM VERY DESSIPOINTED IN WHAT IS THE LAND OF THE FREE.
Posted by doug, Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:43 am I truley can not believe that Obama has attempted to shun the new, first amendment, he need to read. He needs to uphold our countries law not his.
Posted by Matt, Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:44 am NY Times has a penchant for leaking information that shouldnt be leaked. If you recall Geraldo Rivera was denounced by the military and essentially kicked out of Iraq in 2003 for outing information that couldve put the operation at risk.
Posted by JJmark, Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:46 am Fox tells the truth : That's a good one for the morning :
Posted by Brian, ohio, Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:47 am Obama should't be trying to control the news. Instead, make it with smart decisions and legislation to improve Americans lives. You didn't see Bush getting into pie fights with MSNBC... His decisions might not have been popular, but he passed legislation and did a lot with his time. Is a pie fight worth the white house's time? Mr. President, that's not why we voted for you. If we wanted a clown, we would have voted for Dennis Kucinich.
Posted by Martin Reginald, Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:51 am So, Greenwald and Cole are justifying Obama's bad behavior by citing what they believe was misbehavior from the previous administration? Bloody genius! They've just proven that nothing changes in politics except the players. So much for Obama's 'Change', eh?
Posted by tpayne, Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:56 am I believe it is important to point out that not providing access to press conferences is a far, far different than censorship. Excluding disreputable agencies from what are already closed conferences is no more questionable than barring cell phones from a movie theatre.
Posted by Larry Linn, Friday, October 23, 2009, 9:56 am All of the television news shows are not in the news business. They are in the advertising business. When the ratings go up for any news or entertainment program, so does the income and return to the investors. FOX has taken over the right wing, reactionary neocon segment of the population, and left the other networks to compete for the majority.
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